Holiday in Wales, day 3, Wednesday 6 May, (part 2)
After the slate museum it was onwards to
Caernarfon medieval walled town and Castle. The rain continued to fall in
sheets from the sky and the coach couldn’t enter the walled town. This meant we
had a wet walk to see anything but, staying on the coach wasn’t an option, so
off we went. From where the coach dropped us it was a short uphill walk to the
entrance of the walled town. And I have to admit, up until the very moment I
saw the notice saying Caernarfon walled town, I had no idea it WAS a walled
town, I only knew there was a castle there.
As the old town walls came into sight and I
could see the medieval town inside the walls, I realised something else. I
realised that even in those days, and we are talking thirteenth century, the
world had already become a very small place. I’ve previously spent time in two
other medieval walled towns. In 2004 I was lucky enough to spend two weeks in the
Greek island of Rhodes.
The walled city of Rhodes
is one of the most magical medieval places in the world and last year, in 2014,
I was fortunate enough to spend two days in Carcassonne,
another medieval walled town, this time in Southern France.
And as I stood there, in the pouring rain,
the similarities between these far flung places hit me. The fortifications in Rhodes were begun late thirteenth century. The defensive
and strategic position of Carcassonne
was recognised in primitive times; but the walled town as it is now was mostly
constructed in thirteenth century. The fortifications at Caernarfon were built
by a English king of French descent in thirteenth century. The time scale isn’t
exactly the same, building techniques were differed slightly, they all used
stone local to their own area and there were some differences in architectural
style but; underneath that, these three places, all in completely different
parts of the world, showed more similarities than differences. I found that
quite amazing, we love to say what a small world we live in these days, but
actually it always has been. There are visible, tangible, connections between a
walled town in a Greek Island, a border town in the south of France and a town in wild wet Wales. That was
a bit of an epiphany moment for me.
It was a wet epiphany, which meant keeping
moving and trying not to get too wet. We passed through the outer wall into
what was the medieval walled town. Among the buildings you could feel remnants
of past reaching out to you. It’s strange how places have a ‘feel’, to them. It’s
as if buildings and streets share their memories with you as you pass. It
doesn’t matter how much modern life superimposes itself on top of the past, the
past is still there and it makes itself known, it speaks to you. Once inside the
safety of the town walls, we could see the Castle looming large at the end of
the street. The huge, towering castle exerted its presence over every corner of
that town. I remember the same feeling as I walked the streets of Carcassonne last year,
the eerie feeling that generations of feet had trod the exact same path and
generations of eyes were drawn toward the same towering castellation of the Castle.
All paths in a medieval walled town lead to the Castle; the Castle was the epicentre
of life in these fortified walled towns. Before I visited Carcassonne I read the ‘Labyrinth’ series of
books by Kate Mosse. She is a brilliant author and recreates perfectly life in
Medieval Carcassonne, she brings it to life, and to walk the streets she talks
about makes it all the more alive. And; I had that same recall walking the
streets of Caernarfon, there are enough similarities to make the connection. The
Castle at the end of the tiny narrow streets drew us toward it. When we arrived at the Castle entrance, we
decided not to actually go in. This was partly due to cost and partly due to
time limitations, plus we didn’t know if there was anywhere inside the actual Castle
that would be sheltered. So we satisfied ourselves by walking all the way
around the perimeter of the Castle.
That was one BIG Castle; the gigantic scale
of it was overwhelming, every thing about it shouted BIG, HUGE, ENORMOUS,
POWERFUL. If the intended message was ‘Don’t mess with us’, that message was
heard loud and clear, it’s still being heard loud and clear. I wish there was a
way to recall the abstract into words, but I don’t think there is. I would like
to recall the emotions, the wonder, the feeling of being completely overawed.
Standing next to that towering mountain of grey stone was sublime, and I mean
that in its original sense. (Sublime; Something
which fascinates and delights but at the same time overawes and terrifies
something whose scale is infinite, whose greatness entices but whose terror
repels and petrifies) If those building have retained their power in our
fast, technological age, imagine how it would have felt to a medieval peasant
standing there in the shadow of the castle.
There is a river, (the River Seiont)
whose mouth runs along the rear of the curtain wall, this is the part where
town walls meet castle walls. At this point, overlooking the mouth of the river
sits the Eagle Tower. It is situated at the western
corner of the castle and was the grandest of all the curtain wall towers. It
has three turrets which were once surmounted by statues of eagles. This tower once
contained grand lodgings and at basement level there is the old water gate. It
was through this gate that visitors who arrived via the river could enter the
castle. The water gate, at the base of the eagle Tower has an imposing flight
of stone steps topped with a tall wooden door. And it is on this door, that I
found this old heart shaped lock and chain. And suddenly we realised it was
time to head back to the bus. We had spent some time admiring the Eagle Tower
and the river but time had come to walk the rest of the way around the Castle
wall and head back through the old streets to the old archway out of the walled
town.
Just before we left the safety of the town walls we passed a hotel/ pub/
restaurant and outside, were all the tables and chairs lined up in the rain. I
stopped to take a couple of quick photos just to show exactly how wet every
thing was. The glass ashtrays sat on top of the metal bar tables rapidly
overfilling with rain. It caught my attention.
We all piled back into the coach, took off
wet coats etc and settled down to the journey back to the hotel. True to form,
after dinner at the hotel, the rain cleared and the sun came out. I think the
best weather we had all week was in the evenings after dinner. Every night we
walked along the beach and admired the sunset and that evening was no
exception. The sunset was, as always, magnificent.
